UK boy recovering from brain surgery at PCH

PHOENIX (KSAZ) - It's been five months since doctors in the United Kingdom found a rare type of tumor in Freddie Hunt's brain, two weeks since his family traveled more than 5,000 miles to Phoenix Children's Hospital to get rid of it and one week since the surgery that has changed little Freddie's life, and the lives of the parents, who could not be more grateful.

"I can't wait to start life again and to see him sit at a table without having a seizure, and to take the other children out with him, to take him to a park and where he can just go up the slide and I'm not thinking he's going to have a seizure halfway up the slide," Abby and David Hunt said.

This 2-year-old boy used to have at least 80 seizures a day that were all caused by a type of tumor called hamartoma. It's so rare that Freddie's parents had a hard time getting information until they saw online that PCH was the first place they needed to be.

"We are one of the few centers in the world that treats them," Dr. Ruth Bristol said. "There are just a handful of children born across the world with this lesion each year."

Dr. Bristol of PCH has taken the lead by operating deep in Freddie's brain and thankfully getting most of the plum-sized tumor out.

It's been a week since surgery and since his parents have heard him laugh, but today, that moment was caught on camera.

"He's just done his first laugh... oh my gosh, that's the first time he's laughed... we've been waiting for something like that," Abby and David said.